


In Our Time Of Dying

by forgivenessishardforus



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (until 4x09), Canon Compliant, End of the World, F/M, Speculation, bed sharing, mixed with a bunch of things that definitely won't happen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 04:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10891605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgivenessishardforus/pseuds/forgivenessishardforus
Summary: Clarke drops back to walk beside him. We fight or we die, she had told him four days ago. There was no fight left in either of them, now, only quiet resignation.“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked us to come here. Every time I try to do the right thing it—goes wrong, somehow.”“This was the right thing,” he says staunchly. “We couldn’t leave Raven alone here to die, not when we could save her. We were just too late.” Too late to save Raven: the lab had been empty when they had arrived, the rocket gone. Too late to save themselves.“Everything I did,” she says, “every horrible thing I did, I did to save our people.”“And we did.”“Not everyone. Not the ones who matter.”*Or, what happens when time runs out.





	In Our Time Of Dying

This is how the world ends: not with the whimper of a dying boy exhaling his last breath but with the bang of thunder like a gunshot, cracking across the rolling hills of Becca’s island.

The clouds that gather ominously on the horizon are cousins to the yellow-grey ones that signal black rain; they’re a dark, violent purple shot through with an ill-looking green, roiling and boiling seemingly mere feet above the tops of the trees. A wind rises, lashing the treetops back and forth and yanking on the party’s clothes, urging them on. 

“We need to go,” Clarke says, for they had all stopped to stare entranced at the approach of the inevitable end.

“Go  _ where _ ?” Murphy asks sarcastically. “There’s nowhere  _ to _ go—might as well stay out here and enjoy the view.” 

“Feel free,” Clarke snaps, “but I know that if the end is here, I want to spend it with a full belly and a hundred-year-old bottle of whisky and possibly in a big fluffy bed.” 

“You mean—”

Clarke nods. “The mansion isn’t far. We can make it.” 

◆

The end, Bellamy thinks, had somehow snuck up on all of them despite all the months they had spent preparing for it, creeping silently towards them like a mountain cat towards its prey before leaping out of the shadows with a roar. 

There was no escaping its teeth now, and he’s resigned to that fact; part of him always had been. Since they had landed nine months ago on this terrible, beautiful planet it seemed peace had been torn from their grasp every time it had been within reach, and with every defeat hope had leaked out of him until all that remained was a cold sense of the inevitable. 

But still— _ twelve more hours _ , he can’t help thinking with a tinge of despair. That’s all they would have needed to make it back to the bunker in Polis that held the last remaining members of humanity.

The mansion appears in the distance, somehow gleamingly white against the dark clouds that churn above. It looks a beacon of hope, except it won’t withstand the coming wave of radiation. Nothing on this island will.

Clarke drops back to walk beside him.  _ We fight or we die _ , she had told him four days ago. There was no fight left in either of them, now, only quiet resignation.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked us to come here. Every time I try to do the right thing it—goes wrong, somehow.” 

“This was the right thing,” he says staunchly. “We couldn’t leave Raven alone here to die, not when we could save her. We were just too late.” Too late to save Raven: the lab had been empty when they had arrived, the rocket gone. Too late to save themselves.

“Everything I did,” she says, “every horrible thing I did, I did to save our people.” 

“And we did.” 

“Not everyone. Not the ones who matter.” 

Wordlessly, he takes her hand and holds it tight.

◆

Murphy cooks and Monty tends to Becca’s not-insignificant bar while Miller breaks down furniture for firewood. Harper turns up the stereo before handing Bellamy and Clarke a drink—served in real glasses instead of battered tin or plastic cups—and clinking her glass against theirs. 

“We made it,” she says with an ironic twist to her lips. “Cheers.”

At first, Bellamy had been surprised that Harper had volunteered to join them on their rescue mission, and then had berated himself for judging. For Harper—and Jasper, for that matter—giving up on themselves had never been the same thing as giving up on those they cared about. 

Thinking of Jasper makes his heart painfully, pointlessly contract. Jasper had been awaiting death for months, anyway, and even if he had made it to the island he just would’ve met his end with the rest of them. 

But still. Watching people die had never become something he could just accept. Even now, when he has no choice.

◆

They get drunk and sprawl out on the long leather couches in front of the fire, while the storm that marks the beginning of the end rages outside. Monty lies with his head in Harper’s lap and she runs her fingers through his hair, and somehow Bellamy’s arm has wound up around Clarke’s back while her head nestles into his shoulder.

“God, I can’t believe I left Emori in the bunker just so I could die here with you guys,” Murphy complains loudly from where he’s slouched in the couch’s corner, taking another swig of his drink. “What happened to my survival instinct, huh?” 

“You know,” Miller says, voice a little slurred—he always had been a surprising lightweight— “you’ve changed, Murphy.” 

“You haven’t,” Murphy shoots back, but Miller rolls on like he hadn’t heard him.

“I mean, falling in love? Abandoning certain safety to attempt to help a friend? That’s not the Murphy who—”

“You’re right, I’m not that person anymore,” Murphy interrupts.

“None of us are,” Clarke says, sounding wistful.

“Well I, for one,” Monty says, “am glad that if the world has to end, we’re ending it together. We came to Earth together, we survived together, we die together, right? We’re family.” 

“Damn straight,” Bellamy says.

“And I’m glad it’s ending here, you know?” Harper added. “Instead of rotting in the skybox or being floated or being trapped in that tin can for the rest of our lives. At least we got to  _ live on Earth _ , if only for a short time.” 

And there’s a blessing in that, to be sure, Bellamy thinks. On the Ark he had been alone, consigned to a life of cleaning up other people’s messes; and reflecting on it, he would take nine months of freedom on Earth with this newfound family—nine months of eating real meat and breathing real air and feeling the sun and seeing snow and learning how to hunt, how to drive, how to swim—over a long life spent in space.

It’s not even a question.

◆

Eventually, they all fall asleep, except for Bellamy—even here, even now, his instincts keep him awake and on guard. The roar of the storm is louder now, rattling the windows in their casings and thundering on the roof. He wonders how much time they have left. 

Clarke stirs against him, yawning and looking at the prone forms of their friends before glancing up at him. “Come with me,” she whispers, unfolding herself off the couch and taking him by the hand. 

She leads him upstairs, where the storm is even louder, to a room dominated by a bed more luxurious than any he’s seen before. “This is where I want to spend my last moments,” she says. “With you.” 

He can only nod and allows her to pull him over to the bed, shucks off his jacket and lies down while she goes around to the other side. And it’s while they’re lying there, the mattress as soft as heaven below him and the storm raging like hell above, that a wave of anguish floods through him, filling his mouth with the taste of salt. 

“I wish we had more time,” he says. “Clarke—”

“I know,” she murmurs. Her hand reaches out to brush against his, and he turns to face her. There are tears in her eyes. “Maybe in a different world—”

“On a different shore—”

She smiles slightly, sadly, at that, and for a long time they stare at each other in silence, their hands tangled together between them, until exhaustion begins tugging their eyelids down.

“Safe passage on your travels,” Clarke whispers just when he’s sure she’s almost asleep. 

“Until our final journey to the ground,” he finishes, voice hushed.

The last sentence of the blessing hangs unspoken between them.  _ May we meet again _ . 

_ Maybe we will _ , he thinks as his eyes drift closed. 

And here, at the end of the world, lying next to the person who had been through it all with him, for whom he would do it all over again, at last he finds peace. At last, he finds hope.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me your thoughts in the comments down below! 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr at forgivenessishardforus!


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